returning from BTR

BTR (basic training retreat) was hard. we woke up at early morning time to get to the office before 6:30am on monday because on time is late, at least, according to my crazy team program manager (shalon chester). shalon is named after an alien. we rode on the bus for two hours into western Mass, which for me is just about like telling me that i am going to colorado or something. i had no idea where we were and because i passed out for the entire ride i didn't really see the road signs or anything.

during the first week of BTA (basic training academy) we were in crazy teams which are named after boston neighborhoods. i was on the mattapan crazy team and so on the bus we were organized by crazy teams still. however, you are supposed to find out your permanent teams at BTR, so after our welcome to camp beckett (a YWCA camp, YMCA, something), we were all given pieces of cut up pictures by our crazy team program managers with instructions to find other people with pieces that fit. i was hoping to get on the boston civic engagement team (which mostly deals with physical service and engaging our sponsors) but alas, i was placed on an elementary school team. however, it was my second choice and only because the program manager is.... SHALON! my crazy team PM so it made my life easier not having to adjust to a new PM or senior corps member (they are like assistant PMs). so we met our new, permanent teams for our flagship service.

flagship service - our year-long commitment (in-school/after-school, young heroes, city heroes, and civic engagement) in the national service movement as city year corps members

and then we took a lot of pictures. my team is pretty excellent, despite the fact that i was really upset (but didn't show it) that i didn't get my first choice team. i'm one of the oldest corps members, along with matt. we are both older than jessica, who is our senior corps member (SCM). then erin, who went to school at UNC-charlotte for a couple years and then decided she wanted to take a year off. then there's k-roy (kevin roy, but he goes by k-roy), who is a second year corps member. basically, he loved the CY experience so much that he came back in the same position as a first year corps member. then we have three recent high school grads (j-dot, ashley, deshawn) who are all from the boston area originally. i like that we are so diverse in just about everything that we are.

after we got our teams we had an hour one.

hour one - an hour in which the PM and SCM lay down the rules/expectations for being on their team and where they tell us about our service and anything else that is vital to being on the team.

we all got divided into villages by team. the villages were named spirit, discipline, purpose, and pride, just like what is on the back of our quarter-zip sweatshirts when we get our uniform. my village was the discipline village. the first day we had a workshop on the privilege line and oppression. the privilege line went like so:

1) we all went outside and stood in a long line, shoulder to shoulder.
2) the faciltators read questions outloud twice and we either took steps forwards or backwards.
3) people got reallly separated. i was towards the middle-back.
4) after we all looked at each other strangely, except for the heterosexual, white, rich-type males that were in the front because most of us figured they would be there, we went inside. (even i feel guilty saying that now, but its the system)
5) we sat in the chairs the way we had been outside, so i was in the back.
6) then we talked about what we learned.

1. can't judge a book by its cover.
2. its nobody's fault because we are all victims of internalized stuff and institutions within the system.
3. it was sociology, but it was interesting to see it played out in the group of people that i will be working with this year.
   

it was weird because i felt like the people in the front were trying to justify why they were there instead of acknowleding that they had lead more privileged lives than the rest of us. yes, i consider myself privileged, i have a super loving family, i have never worried about if i was going to eat or not, or if i wasn't going to have a home or anything like that. my parents took an interest in my education, etc, but there were other factors that placed me in the back, such as being brown, being an immigrant, english not being my first language (although now it kind of is), etc. i mean i definitely didn't ever get everything i wanted when i was growing up, but i think that was ok. i didn't want the people in the front (mostly guys) to justify their position in the room, i wanted them to recognize WHY they were up there. it was a long night for most of us. and people of course got angry, but the biggest rule at BTR was agree to disagree.

agree to disagree - means that you can respectfully disagree to anything but don't get an attitude.

then after the workshop we had free time, which basically meant showering in the dark and going to bed so that we could wake up at 6:30am for breakfast and PT.

PT - physical training. not hard, but we do PT to demonstrate spirit, discipline, purpose and pride. in a big location for all 140 of us.

will update on the other days soon.